Couple IT questions for those smarter than me

[brandss]

1. If I run an ethernet cable from my WifiRanger router directly to my smart tv will that improve speed for downloading live tv? I have a new Samsung QLED tv if that matters.

2. It has been suggested on this forum from other threads that if one were to load an app on a phone such as easy tether and then have a device connect to it, said device may run faster because it pulls the speed from the data and not from the hotspot function. I hope this makes sense.

At the end of the day I am trying to get online "tv" to run at a higher quality than standard 480.

[RVFunlovers]

For item 1, while i prefer direct connect over WiFi when practical, the WiFi speed is not the slow link in your setup. WiFi is more than fast enough for great tv quality. The part of any RV speed connection that is the real issue is the cellular connection or the park WiFi to your coach.

For item 2, cellular providers may limit your hot spot by throttling your download speed after a fixed amount of usage in the month. Cellular providers may do the same to your device. I have seen times when my hotspot is throttled down to 600K but my phones are not. They just get reprioritized to a lower priority but as long as the network is not heavily congested the phone works just fine. This is really plan and provider dependent.

So yes, tethering from your phone can give you better speed if your hot spot functionality is throttled by your service provider.

[rarebear.nm]

Hal has it nailed correctly. The overall system speed can only be as fast as the slowest link. Like the strength of a chain.

[Elwood58]

Many cell plans limit video to 480p.

[docj]

Originally Posted by brandss

At the end of the day I am trying to get online "tv" to run at a higher quality than standard 480.

The quality of your video will be almost entirely dependent on your cellular download speed. And this number is by no means fixed. It will vary from location to location as you travel around the country. Furthermore, it will vary with the time of day and the day of the week. And it will also vary from cellular carrier to carrier and what specific data plan you are paying for.

Your post makes it sound as if you think there is a simple solution that will give you high quality video all the time. Yes, there will be locations where this is possible, and even easy. And there will other locations where you will be happy to just get a watchable, stable video.

You are an active participant on this forum so I'm pretty sure that you knew all this. If I've misunderstood your question, I apologize. But the issue of getting high quality video is non-trivial, especially when you're away from a major metro area.

As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing to do is to have multiple accounts with multiple cellular carriers. At any specific location one carrier may provide a better signal than the others. Furthermore, don't overlook the fact that postpaid cellular plans have higher priority on the networks than do prepaid plans. I personally have accounts with all three major carriers and I use the limited hotspot data from my postpaid plans to backup the lower priority data from my prepaid unlimited hotspot plans.

The bottom line is that there is no simple solution and a comprehensive solution isn't inexpensive.

[mike625]

Originally Posted by brandss

2. It has been suggested on this forum from other threads that if one were to load an app on a phone such as easy tether and then have a device connect to it, said device may run faster because it pulls the speed from the data and not from the hotspot function. I hope this makes sense.

Before I would go that route. If you have a phone that can use an adapter to HDMI + power "I think most of the new Samsung can do it / my S9 can" - None of the data used with count as hotspot data & you should have the best download speed that available.

Originally Posted by docj

The bottom line is that there is no simple solution and a comprehensive solution isn't inexpensive.

+1 - with thing always changing - my system is not close to what it was a year ago. I'm on update 3 from what I had - between cell providers and new hotspots.

[Isaac-1]

As the others have said your bottleneck will almost certainly be the cell network connection, any gain you get with running a hard wired ethernet connection vs wifi will be trivial to the point of being insignificant.

[Sbrownstein]

Mike is correct, at least with my carrier. However, I have had a hard time getting an HDMI adapter that works with my Samsung Note 8. In addition, there are some streaming sites that only work with phones and not smart TVs, yahoo sports for one.

My carrier doesn't throttle the phone but will kill the hotspot after usage limits each month. They do, however, limit the video on the phone to less than full HD quality.